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Position:Home>Genealogy> How would I go about doing a family tree?Question:The genealogy books out there say to ALWAYS start with your self. That might work, if you are not serious about it, but if you are, most likely you will soon have too much information for ONE tree. I have one for my Dad and another for my Mom. The one for my Mom is about 4 - 5 times the size as the one for my Dad. So, start with your parents, names, where/when born, etc., then go to their parents, and their parents, etc. By the time you go back 34 generations IF you could find everyone, you would have more than 8 BILLION names for that ONE generation. In other words, people can pretend all they want; your ancestors married your ancestors (people they were already related to). As to where to get the information, try these tips: The "easy way" would be to hire a professional genealogist. Due to the amount of information required to do a fairly decent family tree, if you go back more than just a few generations, you will find it to be VERY time intensive. PCs now have humongous storage on their hard drives; but, if you COULD put everything into the computer, you will soon find it is very difficult to organize all that information. I currently have more than 100 MB of info, and most of it is not even in the computer YET. If you are sincerely interested in your ahnentafel, your genealogy, you will need to be dedicated and organized. So, try these sites and suggestions: The biggest expense will be TIME; I have spent hundreds of hours and have so much left to compile. Remember, no matter where you obtain the information, there are mistakes (yes, I include "official" documents, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, whatever). My maternal grandmother's tombstone doesn't even have her name correct! Anyhew, as to searching, try these: Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with: http://www.searchforancestors.com/... http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739... http://www.usgenweb.com/ http://www.census.gov/ http://www.rootsweb.com/ http://www.ukgenweb.com/ http://www.archives.gov/ http://www.familysearch.org/ http://www.accessgenealogy.com/... http://www.cyndislist.com/ Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites: http://www.ellisisland.org http://www.castlegarden.org For those with native American ancestry, try: http://www.tribalpages.com/ For a fee, try a DNA test: When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno... For Jewish ancestry, try: www.israelgenealogy.com Have a look at these sites these are South African ones, http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri... http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html.... http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website... http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre... Meaning of names: http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani... http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f... Finding live people: Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com Don't forget, use your local library. Ours (a small one, yet) has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as periodicals, books and guidance from an experienced genealogist. Keep good notes on where you find what: sources are very important. I became interested in genealogy when I was a small lad, before I started to school, as my Mom would tell me about her parents, my Dad's parents, and on back. That is also when I first got used to the idea of "the power of 2": You have 2 parents, they each have 2 parents, and so on. 5 generations ago, you would have had 16 g-g-g-grandparents; by 10 generations ago, the number would be 512 "grandparents"; by 35 generations ago, the number is 16,179,869,184 persons (compared to a total of 6,700,000,000 people alive on Planet Earth today). In other words, basically every one on earth can trace their COMMON ancestry back to within the last 34 generations! (Or, since Medieval Times.) Good luck! Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: The genealogy books out there say to ALWAYS start with your self. That might work, if you are not serious about it, but if you are, most likely you will soon have too much information for ONE tree. I have one for my Dad and another for my Mom. The one for my Mom is about 4 - 5 times the size as the one for my Dad. So, start with your parents, names, where/when born, etc., then go to their parents, and their parents, etc. By the time you go back 34 generations IF you could find everyone, you would have more than 8 BILLION names for that ONE generation. In other words, people can pretend all they want; your ancestors married your ancestors (people they were already related to). As to where to get the information, try these tips: The "easy way" would be to hire a professional genealogist. Due to the amount of information required to do a fairly decent family tree, if you go back more than just a few generations, you will find it to be VERY time intensive. PCs now have humongous storage on their hard drives; but, if you COULD put everything into the computer, you will soon find it is very difficult to organize all that information. I currently have more than 100 MB of info, and most of it is not even in the computer YET. If you are sincerely interested in your ahnentafel, your genealogy, you will need to be dedicated and organized. So, try these sites and suggestions: The biggest expense will be TIME; I have spent hundreds of hours and have so much left to compile. Remember, no matter where you obtain the information, there are mistakes (yes, I include "official" documents, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, death certificates, whatever). My maternal grandmother's tombstone doesn't even have her name correct! Anyhew, as to searching, try these: Free sites: there are several to choose from. Start with: http://www.searchforancestors.com/... http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739... http://www.usgenweb.com/ http://www.census.gov/ http://www.rootsweb.com/ http://www.ukgenweb.com/ http://www.archives.gov/ http://www.familysearch.org/ http://www.accessgenealogy.com/... http://www.cyndislist.com/ Assuming they emigrated from Europe, start with Ellis Island and the Battery Conservancy sites: http://www.ellisisland.org http://www.castlegarden.org For those with native American ancestry, try: http://www.tribalpages.com/ For a fee, try a DNA test: When you really want to know where your ancestors came from, try such sites as: www.familytreedna.com, dnatribes.com, dnaancestryproject.com, and, of course, the National Geographics Genotype program, https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/geno... For Jewish ancestry, try: www.israelgenealogy.com Have a look at these sites these are South African ones, http://genealogy.about.com/od/south_afri... http://www.rupert.net/~lkool/page2.html.... http://www.jewishgen.org/safrica/website... http://southafricanfamilyhistory.wordpre... Meaning of names: http://www.winslowtree.com/surname-meani... http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/f... Finding live people: Two good places I use are www.zabasearch.com and www.peoplefinder.com Don't forget, use your local library. Ours (a small one, yet) has www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com, as well as periodicals, books and guidance from an experienced genealogist. Keep good notes on where you find what: sources are very important. I became interested in genealogy when I was a small lad, before I started to school, as my Mom would tell me about her parents, my Dad's parents, and on back. That is also when I first got used to the idea of "the power of 2": You have 2 parents, they each have 2 parents, and so on. 5 generations ago, you would have had 16 g-g-g-grandparents; by 10 generations ago, the number would be 512 "grandparents"; by 35 generations ago, the number is 16,179,869,184 persons (compared to a total of 6,700,000,000 people alive on Planet Earth today). In other words, basically every one on earth can trace their COMMON ancestry back to within the last 34 generations! (Or, since Medieval Times.) Good luck! start with like your great grand parents, and how there kids your grandparents and then there kids, your parents and aunts and uncles and stuf, and tehn you your siblings and your cousins. Start with yourself, then your parents, grandparents, great grandparents---as far back as living relatives can tell you. Include your siblings, parents sibling, grandparents siblings and often after that it becomes difficult. It's always fun work with paper at first. Once you have a lot of data you will want to get genealogy software. There are lost of programs. I won't endorse one. Do NOT make the assumption that your ancestors came in through Ellis Island unless you know for a fact that they ALL arrived in the past 100 years or so and stayed in the northeastern US. If your family has always lived in the southeast, for example, there is a high probability that most, maybe all of your European ancestors arrived before the American Revolution. If you are of Asian descent and live on the west coast it is quite likely that your ancestors were never anywhere near Ellis Island. It is important to talk to older family members who might be able to tell you things that even your parenst might not know. Visit cemetaries, check dates on tombstones. Look for gealogical message boards or forums dedicated to the surnames you are researching; also genealogical and historical boards dedicated to cities or counties or even states where ancestors lived. About 80% of my findings have come from distant cousins I have found on these sorts of boards. If you ever post data acquired in such a way please be sure to credit your sources. That should do for starters. Best wishes! |